Key West 2011 presented by Nautica
Key West 2011 presented by Nautica
Sailing World's coverage includes daily blogs, Boat of the Day interviews, photos, and much more.
Welcome to Sailing World's coverage of Key West 2011 presented by Nautica. We'll have daily reports from correspondents scattered throughout the fleet, interviews with Boat of the Day winners, exclusive photos from Billy Black, podcasts, videos, and more. Whether you're competing in the event or following along from your snowbound office, SW is your one-stop shop for all things Key West.
Vital Links
- Event Homepage
- Results
- Entry List
- Blogs from Sailing World's onboard contributors: Nick Turney, Stuart Streuli, Ian Williams, Martin Kullman, Jonathan McKee
- Press releases from Premiere Racing's Jeanne Kleene and others.
- Exclusive photos from Billy Black: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5
- Video reports by T2Productions (best viewed in Safari or Internet Explorer browsers): Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5
SW's past Key West coverage: 2010, 2009, 2001- 2008
Friday, January 28
"I’d never sailed without the owner in what I would consider a major regatta or race until the final day of Key West Race Week. The owner of the Melges 32 I sailed with had to jet back home for some family commitments. While I would’ve been surprised if he’d simply called the regatta a day early, there never seemed to be any question that we would sail. An additional body was flown in from New York, we shuffled the crew around a bit, and out we went for the final three races."
Stuart Streuli, Melges 32 Dark N Stormy
Read the full blog entry.
Monday, January 24
"It was a huge relief that when we went out on Friday for 3 races determined to race hard that we found ourselves very much in the racing: 3,2,4 for the day represents the same points as Aqua and one more point than Mascalzone Latino and Oracle. As is too often the case, we ended the regatta ready to start it. But hopefully we can take forward the learning points from Key West into the RC44 2011 season opener in San Diego and forward from there for a successful season."
Ian Williams, RC 44 Ironbound
Read the full blog entry
Friday, January 21
"Sailing is a difficult sport. Sometimes, things go the right direction in the beginning, and everything works okay. It was a lucky week for us."
Flavio Favini, Melges 24 Blu Moon
Read the full interview with Favini, skipper of the Boat of the Week.
View Billy Black's photos from Day 5.
View the Day 5 video report by T2Productions.
"Rush was slightly low on starboard layline and tried to tack above us to pin us out. As soon as we saw them tacking, we immediately tacked onto starboard and forced them into two very slow tacks. We rolled them, then gassed them all the way to the mark."
Nick Turney, J/111 Kontiki
Read the full blog entry.
"Strangely, the Division 2 race committee had this thing where they refused to call a general recall, instead calling boats individually—sometimes half the bow numbers in the fleet. This policy really wreaked havoc..."
Jonathan McKee, Melges 24 Uka Uka
Read the full blog entry.
"Instead of being already mentally tired from the effort required to re-tune a rig with which we are only just becoming familiar, the whole team was fresh and fired up for the racing. And, all of a sudden, that was what we were doing. Racing."
Ian Williams, RC 44 Ironbound
Read the full blog entry
"We tacked on Turbo Duck up the entire first leg, pushing them back in the fleet. Around the first mark we were second, with Turbo Duck deep in the fleet. Perfect."
Martin Kullman, Farr 30 Barking Mad
Read the full blog entry.
Thursday, January 20
"It's just about learning from your mistakes. I think it took a long time to sort of realize that. It was a long road, there was a lot of positive things came out of that [campaign]; a lot of things that I'll take with me through this campaign. I've learned a lot about myself since then. It's frustrating. It's hard to look back on that. But at the same time, I think it's really valuable for the future."
Sally Barkow, Former Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, match racing world champion, and 2008 Olympian on the bitter end of her 2008 campaign and what she has carried forward to her 2012 campaign.
To listen Sailing World's interview with Barkow, click here
"We were stuck on the left during a big right shift. Now, do you wait for the header, or tack and take your medicine, crossing behind everyone to get to the right shift?"
Martin Kullman, Farr 30 Barking Mad
Read the full blog entry.
View Billy Black's photos from Day 4.
View the Day 4 video report by T2Productions.
"For him, racing is war, and any advantage must be taken. For me, racing is more about testing your skills against other people that you like and respect. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age."
Jonathan McKee, Melges 24 Uka Uka
Read the full blog entry.
"It's risky being caught out on the edges; it can either work out really well, or not so much. The first beat, it didn't work out, as we found ourselves on the wrong side of a big left shift, sailing up current. Not a good race to be."
Nick Turney, J/111 Kontiki
Read the full blog entry.
"The opportunity to jump into a boat that's completely new to me, with two days of practice and then right into the fleet racing, it's just been a blast."
Don Wilson, RC 44 Team Aqua
Read the complete interview with Thursday's Boat of the Day winner.
Wednesday, January 19
"It's always important to have max boatspeed at the gun, and we should've seen the starboard lineup forming, gone back sooner, and joined the lineup. We did a great job of staying calm, however, and slowly worked our way through the fleet."
Nick Turney, J/111 Kontiki
Read the full blog entry.
"Sailing away from the fleet in a header, I realized I'd have to take more risk and wait before tacking back toward the fleet. This was going to either be really, really bad, or it was going to pull us back into the middle of the fleet. Was I going to be the golden egg, or the bad egg?"
Martin Kullman, Farr 30 Barking Mad
Read the full blog entry.
"I would not recommend the RC 44 for a weekend cruise down the coast—the accommodation is a bit lacking—but it sails like a dream, and in these conditions absolutely comes into its own."
Ian Williams, RC 44 Ironbound
Read the full blog entry.
"It's been light and lumpy all week, and in these conditions, you need to be able to put the bow down and rumble."
Brian Keane, J/105 Savasana
Read the full interview with Keane, Wednesday's Boat of the Day winner.
"I really enjoy sailing for myself. I haven't been a pro sailor, to all of the sudden start asking for money. It's tough. There's a lot of good friends that would say it would be a very good thing for me to do. Every day, I'm nervous. Why do I want to become a pro sailor for $1,500. I'm living the dream. Life is great. I don't have a lot of money. But I have some cool boats. I get to sail a ton."
Bora Gulari, 2010 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year,
To listen Sailing World's interview with Gulari, click here
View photos from Day 3 by Billy Black.
View the Day 3 video report by T2Productions.
"The worst thing to do when you feel slow is overreact. It's easy to convince yourself that you need to make some big changes. Generally this backfires, and you go even slower. In my experience, you are usually closer than you think, and often a few small changes are all you need."
Jonathan McKee, Melges 24 Uka Uka
Read the full blog entry.
Tuesday, January 18
“I look at Olympic sailing; I was pretty connected with Olympic sailing. How many sports in the world do you expect people to watch that are nine-day events, nine days of the same racing? And I think it’s unrealistic for people these days to say: ‘We don’t want to compromise our sport at all, we’re not prepared to change for the media, for the people who are paying for this. Our sport is so important; we’re not going to make any changes for them and we’re going to keep it exactly the same…because that’s our sport and they can take it or leave it.' Well I tell you what will happen if we adopt that attitude, we won’t be in the Olympics.”
Russell Coutts, Olympic gold medalist, creator of the RC 44 class, four-time America's Cup champion
To listen to Part II of Sailing World's face-to-face conversation with Russell Coutts, click here
"Why are there chickens all over the place? In the morning, you hear the roosters crowing. Walking down to the boat, you see chickens in many of the gardens and parking lots. Some pretty nice looking birds, too!"
Jonathan McKee, Melges 24 Uka Uka
Read the full blog entry.
"Despite passing some distance to leeward of the pot, we still hooked it. You see the pot starting to drag towards the keel, and all you can do is watch in horror as it gets sucked under the boat. And then there's a moment of quiet as you cling to the vain hope that, by some miracle, the thing will just pop out the back. It didn’t."
Ian Williams, RC 44 Ironbound
Read the full blog entry.
"On the way in, I thought about what my report card would read for the day’s performance. 'Some bad calls; some good calls. Overall, adjusted to the situation around him, but still needs improvement.'"
Martin Kullman, Farr 30 Barking Mad
Read the full blog entry.
View photos from Day 2 by Billy Black.
View the Day 2 video report by T2Productions.
"I was the one saying, 'Go go go go go.' Of course, I had no idea where the line was."
Stefano Ciampolini, Melges 24 Uka Uka
Read the complete interview with the crew of Uka Uka, Tuesday's Boat of the Day.
"We've made it a pre-race tradition to have a pre-race beer before the first race of the day, and it seems to help calm the nerves and cure the Key West hangover."
Nick Turney, J/111 Kontiki
Read the full blog entry.
"I was the guest crewmember on the RC 44 Oracle Racing, and my spot at the back of the boat put me right next to Mr. Coutts. We shared the windward running backstay as a handhold—very romantic."
Michael Lovett, RC 44 Oracle Racing
Read the full blog entry.
Monday, January 17
“When you sit and speak to some of the top television companies in the world and you find out what they think of our sport, I think it’s dramatically different to what sailors think of the positioning of our sport and where it is today. When you really delve into the figures…you quickly recognize that if we want to survive, we have to make some changes, we can’t just sit there in the Stone Age and expect all the things that were great in the past to be great in the future.”
Russell Coutts, CEO, BMW Oracle Racing
To listen to Part I of Sailing World's face-to-face conversation with Russell Coutts, click here
View photos from Day 1 by Billy Black.
View the Day 1 video report by T2Productions.
"Now I know how Augustus Gloop felt when he got stuck in the river of chocolate being moved off to some undetermined location."
Martin Kullman, Farr 30 Barking Mad
Read the full blog entry.
"In these conditions, we're not consistently up to speed against Aqua, Mascalzone Latino, and Oracle. So we have a lot of work to do this week to try to bridge the gap, and our goals for the week have been amended to be less about results and more about getting up to speed."
Ian Williams, RC 44 Ironbound
Read the full blog entry.
"To come out on top in this class, where every boat's got good guys onboard and every team comes well prepared, the difference maker is how the team gels."
Marco Constant, Melges 32 Goombay Smash
Read the complete interview with the crew of Goombay Smash, Monday's Boat of the Day.
"It's Martin Luther King Day. In the heat of a regatta, sometimes we forget these things. So many people in the sailing world get consumed by selfish and trivial concerns. How can I make my boat a little faster? How can I get a better ride? All of us need to pursue our personal goals, but that is not enough."
Jonathan McKee, Melges 24 Uka Uka
Read the full blog entry.
"We saw a little more pressure moving down the left side of the course, so we opted to start pin third of the line and to leeward of most of our fleet. We were trying to beat them to that pressure."
Nick Turney, J/111 Kontiki V
Read the full blog entry.
Sunday, January 16
"I'm writing this on my phone from the legendary Sloppy Joe's bar in Key West, Fla. It's 75 degrees, the emerald green water is 72, the wind is 15 knots, and I get to go racing every day on a very cool boat, the Melges 24. I'm a lucky guy."
Jonathan McKee, Melges 24 Uka Uka
Read the full blog entry.
Friday, January 14
"As a professional sailor, I spend most of my time sailing in professional regattas, where media coverage and return on investment for sponsors are key drivers. So, to come to multi-class events like Key West, where the prime focus of the race organisers is on the enjoyment of the sailors over a wide range of different classes, is something I very much look forward to."
Ian Williams, RC44 Ironbound
Read the full blog entry.
"We were on our descent into Key West. Better late than never, I said to myself. The stewardess had warned us to be prepared for a hard landing due to the truncated runway. Then the nose rose. “There’s been a problem with the slats, and because the runway at Key West is so short, we need everything we can get from our slats and flaps. We’re diverting to Miami.”
Stuart Streuli, Melges 32 Dark N Stormy
Read the full blog entry.
Thursday, January 13
"When Terry asked me to call tactics for Barking Mad in Key West, I think I knew how Charlie felt when he opened the chocolate bar and found the golden ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. I've been given the opportunity to battle it out with the big boys!"
Martin Kullman, Farr 30 Barking Mad
Read the full blog entry.
Tuesday, January 11
"Last year, I spent the third week of January holed up in Newport while everyone else was bashing through the aquamarine waters off the Florida Keys. Needless to say, I’m excited to go reacquaint myself with the United States' southern-most city."
Stuart Streuli, Melges 32 Dark N Stormy
Read the full blog entry.
"Key West is not your average event. When preparing for it, it helps to take some different approaches."
Nick Turney, J/111 Kontiki V
Read the full blog entry.
